Date of Award
8-1986
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Department
Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology
First Advisor
Dr. Gilbert Mazer
Second Advisor
Dr. Robert Brashear
Third Advisor
Dr. Robert Betz
Abstract
The study was conducted in the context of three conditions related to alcoholism which impact Western society: the destructive effects of the disease, the paucity of research concerned with female alcoholics, and the problems of early termination from residential treatment.
The specific purpose of the study was to investigate the feasibility of using demographic and personality variables of female alcoholic outpatients at a residential facility to: (a) predict probable program completion for female residents at the time of admission and (b) predict probable premature terminations at the time of admission.
The Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation Behavior Scale (FIRO-B) and the following nine demographic variables were chosen to test the above objectives: ethnicity, age, marital status, education, employment status, occupational status, arrest history, previous treatment, and prior drug usage.
The subjects under investigation were 232 female alcoholics ranging in age from 18 to 64 years who attended a residential alcohol treatment facility in Grand Rapids, Michigan, within the last 10 years. The FIRO-B was administered to all subjects after detoxification and prior to admission to the program. A program completer was defined as any resident who completed all three levels of the behavioral program. A program dropout was defined as a resident who did not complete the three levels.
The Logistic Discriminant Analysis was chosen for data analysis because of the nature of the data. The analyses yielded a statistically significant difference (p < .05) between the completer group and the noncompleter group for age, legal drug use, and no previous treatment. No significant differences were found between the completer group and the noncompleter group on the following variables: education, marital status, economic status, occupational status, arrest history, and ethnicity. The analyses of the FIRO-B group means revealed that the Expressed Inclusion (EI) scale score discriminated at a p of .08. Since this was an exploratory study, the writer chose to include EI in the predictor equation.
An equation was formulated for use by administrators of treatment programs for female alcoholics in an effort to improve prediction of attrition and retention for each referral at the time of admission.
Access Setting
Dissertation-Open Access
Recommended Citation
Loser, James, "A Logistic Discriminant Analysis of Factors Affecting the Attrition and Retention in an Outpatient Treatment Program for Female Alcoholics" (1986). Dissertations. 2280.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/2280